


Helcaraxë

by HASA_Archivist



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Drama, First Age
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-24 18:19:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3778982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HASA_Archivist/pseuds/HASA_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Terrible was the Chaos of Ice, and few of those who engaged into the Crossing ever saw the horizon broken again. It is said that never the Noldorin accomplished so great a feat again ...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Helcaraxë

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the HASA Transition Team: This story was originally archived at [HASA](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Henneth_Ann%C3%BBn_Story_Archive), which closed in February 2015. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2015. We posted announcements about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact The HASA Transition Team using the e-mail address on the [HASA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hasa/profile).

Author’s note: Thoughts of Finrod Felagund through the Helcaraxë. Another Silmarillion fic. 

\---------------------- 

The cold …  
The biting cold …

 

The people walk on. No matter what, they walk on. Fingolfin’s cry. Keep going. Keep going. Fight to the last. Walk and struggle until you fall. 

 

The ice tears at your body as thousand daggers of silver, and one day, one day it will reach the heart …

 

Ah, Amarië, how glad I am you are not here today …You would have had to hear the wind’s eerie howling and see the endless horizon of sparkling snow and feel the scythe of steel at your throat …

 

Witness the leaving of those you loved, fallen in the Chaos of Ice and with Death to your heels. 

 

Go on! Go on! Go on among the chants and epics of tomorrow, through the perils of Helcaraxë!

 

Turgon walks in front of me. Turgon, prince of the Noldorin, great among the greats, standing tall and proud to his father’s right, under the cloudless sky of Valinor. Turgon, laughing and kissing his daughter on the forehead, in the halls of his palace. Turgon, walking now, broken, stumbling, bent under the weight of silent grief and sorrow of his heart. Face haggard. His cry, his eyes when Elenwë had sunk below the surface. Too far from her was he to take her hand. But not too far to see the last of her face, the smile of them who are going to sleep, and hair floating on the water. Her body frozen before she had a chance to drown.

 

Numerous were those who walking met his gaze in the silence. The silence filled with the moan and cry of the wind, and yet more silent and hollow than any night of void I had crossed. None had been able to hold it. The stare of one who had lost much and by that gained a power, the terrible power of those who knew something more, those whose wrath is to be feared and run from. 

 

In the silence we walk. 

 

And he had turned away, and went on, with his eyes on the ground. In his arms, under his cloak, he holds Idril. Little Idril Celebrindal. Reflection of her mother’s beauty. Aredhel clings to his arm, leaning on him. Two figures of grey few dare to approach.

 

Go on! Go on! And never fail!

 

I tighten my arms around my own burden. I still know not of his name. I had stumbled upon the child, half-frozen to death on the ice, eyes closed, shivering, and his breath forming faint clouds in the freezing air. I took him. He’s cold. I try to warm him up, and warm myself up in the process. It doesn’t work. Perhaps his mother now searches for him hopelessly among the crowd. Or perhaps already she rests, in a peace beyond the reach of this world. If I could have, I would have shuddered. Life flees. Flees, and my numb fingers are powerless to grab hold of it.

 

Keep going! Never stop marching! Never stop fighting!

 

And we walk on, stumbling, dying, rasping, together yet alone, in our misery. To my right a nameless girl falls to her knees. I stop for a second, lending her my arm, but no longer. One cannot stop in this Hell of Ice. Have to go on. Step by step. One foot before the other, and then the other. Coughing. Blood on my hand. 

 

Solitary, and solidarity, Princes and Kings and peasants confounded, all equal in front of the pitiless law of Life and Death. Together in doom and darkness. But one must go on. Never mind the pain. The grief. The suffering. 

 

Amarië my love … We’ll meet again one day, after the end of days … For now, Fingolfin’s cry keeps us going … 

 

But go on! Don’t look back, for there is no return from the Helcaraxë!


End file.
